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Nothing Really Matters – Looking back at Nordic Game Jam 2026

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Scholarship report by Soham Sen

What happens when you put 650 creative people in a room and give them 48 hours to team up and create a game?

One would imagine chaos, panic and feeling absolutely overwhelmed. But the truth is, it was none of those things, it was Nothing!

Nordic Game Jam 2026 was a thrilling and rewarding gam jams of my life, filled to the brim with four days of fun, frolic and intense creativity. Many became friends, none became enemies (hopefully), and some became collaborators for life. In this report, I would like to share the amazing time that I had, courtesy the Finnish Game Jam Organisation’s generous scholarship, travelling to Copenhagen and falling in love with the process of making games all over again.

Day 0 – The Journey Begins

(Left) Sweden over there, Denmark below, (Right) Symmetry everywhere!

I was introduced to Denmark long ago as a child from history books and world maps, and later as a teenager taking a boat trip on the river Ganga, to explore the Danish colonial town of Serampore in India. Naturally, I was curious to meet the Danes, learn more about their culture, and understand if Hygge is serious business or commodified influencer lingo. From my flight window, Copenhagen looked unconventionally symmetrical – tiny buildings arranged in a large space, each looking exactly like the other, wide avenues and narrow neighbourhood streets – almost as if someone had designed it perfectly in Cities Skylines!

That evening I took a walk around the Aalborg University campus and Sydhavn, marvelling at the reflection of the buildings on the canals. The architecture of this part of the city was very unique with its large wide glass windows – something I had not seen in other European cities. These windows covered the whole height of the room, from the ceiling to the floor, and were present in almost every building – shops, galleries, office spaces, residences.

Reflections on the Canals of Sydhavn

I love to soak in the environment when I travel to a new place. The French call it Flânerie – the act of taking a walk to let your creative juice start flowing. Quite essential before a game jam, I would argue!

Day 1 – Salsa and Sore Throat

Nordic Game Jam works differently from most other game jams. After all, it is one of the largest on-site game jams in the world. There are four days of events: the first 1.5 days are filled with talks, networking, and parties; the next two days are packed with jamming and end with a showcase and an after-party, if you still have the energy.

(Left) The entrance to Aalborg University, (Right) Wristbands for the jammers

Having booked a hostel close by, I was one of the first people to walk into the building and grab my wristband and t-shirt. I met up with Toby, the Outreach lead of the Organising team. Apart from him, however, I knew no one else. Being a shy person, this spelt trouble, because I had to form a team before the jam started, not after. In all the game jams I have participated in (including all the Finnish Game Jams), the theme is revealed first, then people pitch their ideas, and finally teams get formed around the idea. But here, teams are supposed to form around people, not ideas. It’s understandable to go for this approach when you have so many jammers participating (the logistics of everyone pitching would take up a long time) so I had to figure out how to choose the right team.

How did I do that? Simple, I let go of my expectations and tried to find people I vibe with.

Icebreaker Session where you have to create a badge for yourself

Here’s where NGJ shines more than other events – they hold one-hour icebreaker sessions, filled with fun social games and activities like creating badges, drawing on a large canvas, and playing with LEGO bricks. Most of the people I connected with were ones I met through these icebreaker sessions. As the day progressed, I felt less alone than before. 

Note to the readers: It is okay to feel intimidated in a space where you know no one, but trust me, you are not alone, and you will eventually find people interested in talking to you. Just throw yourself out and see what it does!

Understanding what contributes to game feel and juice with board game designer Francesco Rugerfred Sedda’s talk ‘Designing the Paragame’

Understanding Code Architecture for Game Jams with Chris Carvelli’s talk ‘Programming Patterns for Game Jammers’

I took Day 1 casually, trying to find people with whom my wavelength matches rather than people who are looking for a more utilitarian team member – someone to code/draw for them, not with them. Post-jam, I found a lot of people who ended up on this path, and felt excluded and left out. I believe my experience also helped me here, as when I was approached by people with an already existing 8-member team wanting to create an action roguelike first-person open world, I immediately turned around and walked the other way, politely, of course.

Note to the readers: Good game jams games are small and effective. Make sure you work on an idea that is minimal, simple, and can be finished in less than a day!

(Left) Meeting Arvi, (Right) Learning Salsa from Muke

After the talks and icebreakers, it was time for the pre-party. While standing in the queue, I ran into Arvi Teikari, the creator of Baba is You. It was nice to find a familiar face from Finland, as Arvi was the person from whom I got to know that the Nordic Game Jam exists. During the party, I had an amazing time getting to know Muke, a Cuban software engineer working in Ecuador. I had always been fascinated by Salsa, and failed horribly in the dance workshop at my university, but Muke taught me the steps so well that I can now dance Salsa effortlessly. Seeing our quaint little Salsa ‘workshop’ at the party, other jammers joined us as well!

The party concluded with a music quiz at night, and there I met Simon, a Danish game dev student with whom I teamed up for a music quiz, and ended up becoming the winners! We got a Chromecast and a free t-shirt from the previous jams, and I became fast friends with Simon. 

(Left) Simon, (Right) Our winning answer sheet

Even with all its pleasant moments, the day ended on a sour note, as I started throat caught an infection and my hostel roommates made so much noise I couldn’t sleep well.

Day 2 – Community and Lies

Friday morning brought with it both anxiety and excitement; although I was really looking forward to the theme announcement, I was afraid if I would find a good team. I had a clear idea of my own expectations – I wanted to make something simple and experimental, so I went around the venue asking people if they were planning to do the same. There were two problems at hand – some of the teams had already come prepared and were looking for optional additions, and the rest were teams which formed on-site, but had different expectations from the jam. 

The Industry Showcase, which takes place before the Theme Announcement

The clock was ticking, and there was 20 minutes left till the final keynote and theme reveal. All the people I had met before had already found a team, and I was almost on the verge of joining as an extra in another team or going solo (which is worse!), when Laggy called out to me.

Laggy is an artist from Lisbon who I bonded with the previous day over our shared love for Portugal and similar tastes in games. She said that she found a team with two people – both of whom looked older than me, and were experienced jammers themselves. One of them was an artist and the other a programmer, and both wanted to do something simple and unique.

Bang! I had found the perfect team – in size, experience and vision. My newfound teammates – Didrik and Marios, were an artist and programmer from Sweden and Greece respectively, who worked in a mobile game company in Copenhagen called Trophy Games. They were both veteran jammers and were here to have fun and make something cool, and had already participated in Nordic Game Jam before. I couldn’t have felt more grateful

Note to the readers: If you are in any event and are looking for a team, always pitch your expectations, and find people who match/support them. This makes for the most compatible team in the shortest time.

(Left) Morten Brunbjerg’s Post Mortem as an Assistant Writer on Hi-Fi Rush, (Right) Michael Flarup’s Tip to enjoying the process of making games 

“What do game designers really do? We create lies.”

Rami Ismail took the stage to deliver the keynote for this year’s jam, and inspired the hundreds of us who gathered in the open space to hear him. Even though the games industry is performing terribly at the moment, the people who make these games are amazing, and Rami asked us to respect and value the people – in our team, our collaborators, and other game creators, as each of us is passionate. This becomes more important in events like this, as people think and perceive the world very differently, and all of us have different values and communication styles; it is important to try to understand each other and empathise, so that we can all get the chance to work on what we love.

A moment from Rami Ismail’s keynote

Another fascinating insight I learnt from Rami is the 70-25-5 rule. In most of the memorable and good games that we play, not all of it has to be perfect. 70% of the game can be okay, 25% of the game should be good, and 5% of the game should be the best thing that can ever be. Rami encouraged us to go for simplicity and focus on finishing a game, and most importantly, having fun.

The theme reveal was the highlight of the day, in fact the whole jam. Jaime, the lead organiser, kept rolling the slides for the sponsors, rules and other miscellaneous stuff one after the other, while we kept waiting with bated breath as what the theme could be. As we neared the theme reveal slide, we could see a word popping up in the slides, growing from a tiny speck and increasing its font

Community

Community

Community

Community

“The theme for Nordic Game Jame 2026 is…. NOT Community”, Jaime announced, amusing all of us with this on-your-face prank. But then what would the theme be?

“For this year, the theme will be DECIDED by YOU, the community!”, Jaime roared, and all of us felt excited.

(Possible video: video6298466301455113709.mp4)

We would play a game of qualifiers, where Jaime would ask questions to the audience, and we would answer them, leading to a chain of three questions, and ending with a theme. The adrenaline was so high at that moment with all of us cheering and shouting that I barely remember the exact questions, but I remember the final four contenders for the knockout round were – ‘Swimming’, ‘I Can’t Jump’, ‘Cleaning’ and ‘Nothing’, and guess who won the final round? 

Nothing. (Possible video: video6298466301455113708.mp4)

The only thing I regret from this whole event was screaming too much, because my throat, which was already sore, got even worse, and then later during the evening, I couldn’t even speak properly. My voice totally broke down, and this stopped me from sharing my own ideas during the brainstorming process. However, my team had a vision which seemed interesting – to create a game where you are invisible, where you are nothing. Laggy introduced us to the term ‘Agoraphobia’, which means the fear of being seen/perceived. 

We brainstormed for a couple of hours and came to the main mechanic – you will be an invisible character in a 2D platformer, and the camera will only follow you if you are in the light. But stay too long, and you will die.

Exploring the Campus building at night

I was really excited to start working on the idea, but we decided to go get a good night’s sleep and start working the next morning.

Day 3 – The Level Design Problem

I wish things were different on Saturday morning. I couldn’t sleep the previous night because of noisy roommates, missed my cup of fine barista coffee (NGJ gives you that for free in the mornings), and was still suffering from the sore throat. However, looking back, only the good bits remain in my memory – working on the game, grabbing lunch with my teammates, going around the venue talking to a lot of different people and playtesting their games.

(Left) Building Legos, (Right) Building Unity scenes

I also ran into a lot of people – both familiar and new, like Francisco Múrias, who I met in Portugal in a games seminar class on graphics programming, back in 2024. It was also a really cool moment to meet two former Playdead designers, Peter Buchardt and Laurids Binderup, with whom I got to nerd out about Limbo and Inside, and learnt about their design process on creating the levels of the two games. On Saturday, Nordic Game Jam also offered portfolio reviews, narrative consultation and puzzle consultation, where you can talk to industry professionals about your games, projects, career, and get help from them.

Puzzle Consultation with Erik Fumi, escape room designer

For our game we had decided to build the level in a real life environment, inspired from games like Inside. We built a small prototype for the main mechanic in the evening, playtested it with some people, and realised it is indeed quite fun and has potential.

Note to readers: Try to get a prototype of your jam idea quickly and test it out before committing to it! Playtesting (even amongst yourselves) can reveal a lot of insights on what works and what doesn’t!

(Left) Breakfast, (Right) Lunch

I ran into a major challenge when designing the level. With our decision to set the game in a city, it was crucial to only use urban environmental objects as platforming segments. This meant that it would be difficult to use blocking, as the ‘platforms’ themselves would be these objects, and not only the dimensions, but their shape would also matter. I tried my best to block the level after categorising the different types of lights as our platforming obstacles, and placing them strategically to create the navigational puzzles, but it was not working. Using abstract shapes to block out a level like this felt unnatural.

I realised that being just a level designer will not work, I will have to be an artist as well. So I started drawing the level on paper, using real world props as platforms – things like buildings, streetlights, garbage bins, construction cranes, etc. At around 1 AM, I sat down with Laggy to discuss the whole level, and get her thoughts on the plan I had made. It was a very fruitful collaboration session for me – the artist became the designer and the designer, the artist.

Midnight Level Design sketches

Laggy shared her ideas on how she was visualising the level and the environment – the derelict buildings, walls, lights, etc, and I was helping her strategically place different types of lights throughout the plane, and charting the various routes of movement the player can take. By 2 AM, we had finished the final level design. All that was left now was to create the art assets, and place them in the scene.

Before leaving the campus at 3 AM, I hung out with Laggy and Andreas, a Danish friend I made the previous day, who told us about different types of Danish food and places to visit in and around Copenhagen, while we shared stories of food from our own cuisine. 

Day 4 – What doesn’t Start Well, Ends Well

I wish I could tell you that I had a good night’s sleep and came back to the jam site fresh to complete the final tasks, but that didn’t happen.

When I entered my hostel room at night, I found my clothes and items wet and spread over the floor, and someone else’s items kept on my bed. I had to go to reception, and they were clueless as to who this person could be, and how they got access. Thankfully I got a new private room, but it took an hour more and I couldn’t sleep before 4:30.

My team, from left to right, (Top), Me, Laggy, (Bottom), Didrik, Marios

My teammates were really supportive, and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for putting in the extra effort when I couldn’t – Laggy spent all night creating the assets, and Dedrik and Marios had come early in the morning to implement our level design. I came in later around 11, when there was only 4 hours remaining, and managed to help with the finishing touches like sound manager, sound effects, and UI/UX. It was super fun to record Didrik’s screams, (which you will hear in the main game). I was glad that the game was ready on time, and we didn’t have to crunch too much before the deadline.

Our game played by people during the final showcase

As the clock struck 3, we gathered all our stuff and went to the common area to set up our laptops and showcase our games. It felt super inspiring and delightful to find myself in a space where people could find not only an outlet for their passion, but also appreciation for it. I am happy to report that we got a great reception on ‘Unseen’, our proud little platformer, with the game getting significant attention even after the jam, covered by two different twitch streamers. We also realised we didn’t really have a tutorial, but players could soon grasp the mechanics, and it was fun to see them make their way to the end of the level.

(Left) The LEGO tower I build, (Right) The music sampler which the creator was using

I also tried a lot of cool and quirky games. Many games were about doomscrolling, pop-up ads, and the theme of brainrot. There were a few cat games as well, and quite a few games about monks or reaching salvation, nirvana and inner peace. Two projects I really liked was an alternate controller game where you are playing minigames using a music keyboard, and another live installation game where you are building a jenga tower with lego bricks of different shapes and sizes, and the creator sits next to you composing live background music on his portable sampler as you listen to it through headphones.

I was the only Indian in the whole Nordic Game Jam!

As the showcase wrapped up, I bade goodbye to my teammates, as well as most of the people I had met during the jam. It felt sad to part with the amazing people that I had met over the last four days, but we shared our socials so that we could remain in touch, and also collaborate in future events. 

The last of the jammers from the Afterparty

The day concluded with an afterparty held at a board game cafe, where I met more people, and bonded over Danish beer and Landmarks – the first linguistic deduction board game that I have ever played. When the cafe closed, all of us went to the nearest pub, where the conversation continued till midnight on programming, game design, industry and of course, our favourite games. I remember ranting a lot about Unity and its problems to Daniel Kierkegaard Andersen for 15 minutes, without realising he is a senior software engineer at Unity. I was sitting with him and one of the developers of Void Crew, Kristijonas Mališauskas, and both of them were super friendly and shared resources with me for learning more about Unity shaders and graphics programming.

Conclusion

A board used by jammers for brainstorming

I have always been an advocate for game jams and jamming in general. Events like Nordic Game Jam are not only a hub for creativity but also a great place to find like-minded people. Unlike other forms of art, games are better when made in collaboration. They are complex, combined works of playable media, and become richer and more unique when multiple chefs contribute to the recipe. 

I only wish it would last longer, but as they say, all good things come to an end. The memories and the friends I made in Nordic Game Jam (even with the sore throat and sticky hostel situation) will forever be etched in my heart. I will encourage everyone reading this to go participate in more game jams, meet people, build crazy things, experiment, fail, and create more magic in this world.

With the rising growth of artificial intelligence, maybe it is human stupidity which will truly create some of the greatest works of all time. Long live game jams!

Nyhavn at Sunset, Copenhagen

PS #1: I had the pleasure of staying in Copenhagen for a couple more days and roaming around the city. I would highly recommend exploring the city on a bike. It looks lovely when the Sun is shining, and the people are out on the streets. Also, try the Danish pastries! They are super tasty. I would also recommend a trip to Kronborg Castle and the town of Helsingør. The train ride from Copenhagen will provide you with vistas of the Danish coastline, with the mighty castle greeting you at the very tip of the edge.

PS #2: Generally, the a&o hostel provided a nice experience for everyone else staying there. Perhaps the stars were not aligned, and I was just unlucky to experience the worst possible nights staying at any hostel in Europe. But don’t let it bias you. Airbnbs are generally more expensive, but if you can afford it, I think it’s the safer choice.

JamJam25 was fantastic – once again!

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🏘️ This weekend, a gamedev village popped up again in Sappee.
Over 70 jammers, speakers, volunteers, and game lovers came together for three days of inspiration, creation, and connection.

From deep dives into game jam culture and its future, to live karaoke, cozy saunas, and hot tubs – JamJam 2025 was everything we hoped it would be… and more.

💬 Talks ranged from industry job-hunting tips to hands-on advice for making games – and beyond.
🛠️ 20 (!) workshops for every kind of jammer:
– For crafters: Pixel art cross-stitching, linocut printing, and more
– For the sporty: Frisbee golf, martial arts, and other ways to move
– For gamers: Prototyping sessions, party games, and playful experimentation
– And of course, for jam organizers: the Jam Organizers’ Handbook Workshop gathered an astonishing crowd – thank you all for your insights and contributions!

🎮 The traditional 1-hour game jam saw 7 wild submissions – chaotic brilliance in action.

Each year, JamJam welcomes international guests, and this year was no exception. The Game Jam team from Poland (Anna Krawczuk, Beata Orlińska, Jan Krzyszkowski, and Maciej Pieniążek) joined us to exchange stories, build friendships, and explore cross-community collaboration. We clicked so well that Finnish Game Jam will soon announce a scholarship program for attending Slavic Game Jam – stay tuned for the next post, you won’t want to miss it!

A huge thank you to our partners and sponsors:
❤️ IGDA Finland – for championing the community
👾 Game Makers of Finland – for supporting jammers behind the scenes and on the ground
🍦W Love Games – for sticking with us through the years, and for the ice cream!

And of course, endless gratitude to those who brought the energy – you made this more than an event. You made it a community – again:

🫶 Volunteers: Andreas Marcato the master chef 🤌, Casimir Kuusela the dedicated photographer and videographer 📸, Milla Jerohin, Daria Khilchuk, Roosa Alitalo, Christopher Solis, Sakari Muhonen, Antti Keinänen, Elias Heijari, Anna Zibrova, Sara Seddighi, Anna-Ilona Nikolaeva – your dedication and hard work made this event flawless
🎤 Speakers: Anna Krawczuk, Axel Kulomaa, Mikael Paananen, Rama Hannula, Naomi Le – you make JamJam unforgettable bringing your wisdom and expertise!
And of course – many many thanks to all attendees!

✨ Until next time – keep jamming. Thank you for making JamJam 2025 as awesome as it was! ✨

Here comes ProtoKoli!

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Just a few days ago, 9 people pioneered a new form of a game jam, happening in the beautiful landscape in Koli. ProtoKoli combines the magic of Finnish nature with game making, all organized around the sense of community. Although originally envisioned as an event for game industry professionals and game dev educators, in the spirit of game jamming ProtoKoli is open for everyone.

The first edition of the jam took place between 16th and 21st of August, combined with the GMTK game jam which was going on at the same time. This gave an added spice to the event, with the jam theme becoming “Built to scale”, in addition to Koli’s nature inspired ideation. Overall, one game has been published, however, ProtoKoli brought a lot more.

So why was all this so special? Let’s break it down. We had:

  • 1 cottage with sauna, mixed with
  • 1 pure water lake with warm water, hosting
  • 1 game jam lasting for 4 days and 6 nights, in
  • Awesome amounts of warm atmosphere, for
  • 9 people (which of 7 at the same time), releasing
  • 1 game, additionally making
  • 5+ prototypes, and also
  • 148 pixel art sprites, with
  • 62,312 lovingly handcrafted pixels, that required
  • Kilos of delicious food to feed hungry jammers, including
  • 46 eggs in 4 days and 6 nights of cooking, with surprisingly only
  • 2 packets of coffee consumed, because we also achieved
  • 7 km hiked up a hill (vaara), though we did have
  • 1 morning runner, with
  • 3 late night devs, and
  • at least 3 not-so-morning-people, ending in
  • 11 AM as the average breakfast time.

Although the jam theme “Built to Scale” felt uninspiring for some, the sauna did its healing work, as the overall spirit of We’re here to have fun! loosened up the atmosphere and got the creative juices flowing. When one participant decided to make a retro Zelda-like game with a mysterious forest as the main environment, the sauna brought a team together – reunited after 10 years, two jammers hijacked the sauna chatted endlessly, setting the base for their collaboration on what ended up becoming a published game.

(To play Legends of The Goblin Shore 2, click or tap here.)

However, if by reading all this you thought that four days is a really long time, you are sort of correct. But then, do you know how awesome Koli is?

To follow and combine the two themes of the event, on Saturday we scaled (= climbed) the vaara of Käränkä, during a hill-climbing forest walk. We testify – the berries are tastier high up in the mountains!

On Sunday, we went on to climb the most iconic mountain of Koli, right at the national landscapes. Some of our attendants had to leave early, so climbing Ukko-Koli was in a way ending the first part of the game jam.

We also got to enjoy some amazingly tasty food (that we made all by ourselves – special love goes out to our food preppers <3)!

…And we also visited the Veistospuisto in Koli, which even had unicorns! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ

We can speak about this forever, but truly, this is one of those experiences that you just need to live it to feel it.

Sounds like your kind of jam? Keep an eye out for the next edition coming your way in 2025!

ProtoKoli was organized by Finnish Game Jam and Osuuskunta Vedenhaltijat with financial support from Usmin Fysioterapiapalvelu Oy, Jestercraft, Kooders and Boom Corp.

Special thanks to Riikka Lotta-Pehkonen for all the hard work in bringing everyone together, and all the jammers: Kiri Kälkäjä, Miikka Harjuntausta, Nevena Sicevic, Klaus Kääriäinen, Miikka Kostian, Harri Karhu, Antti Piironen and Olli-Matti Rautiainen.

#FGJ20 Report

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Another FGJ has been completed! Thank you everyone for participated no matter what role!

Every year despite limited time, we are amazed what you jammers can do. This year in Finland we had 32 sites, more than 700 jammers who developed 238 games.

You can find all the games developed in Finland on the Global Game Jam page: 

https://globalgamejam.org/2020/games?title=&country=FI

This year, GGJ had over 48,700 jammers attending 934 jam sites across the world in 118 countries, all coming together became the biggest jam ever! Once again GGJ has broken all of last year’s records and become the newly-crowned Biggest Game Jam Ever! 

GGJ had 9 new countries take part for the first time ever: Albania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cyprus, Mauritius, Senegal, Sudan and Zimbabwe, adding 213 jammers and 35 new games to the mix. One of GGJ’s biggest aims is to be able to bring new emerging voices and talent into the game making space, and welcome these new site organisers and jammers to our big jam family.

The global theme for GGJ20 was repair and jammers incorporated this theme as a concept in their games in different ways: various states of repair, breaking and repairing buildings and pots, repairing relationships, and plants repairing themselves. 

In Finland we were lucky to have amazing national and local sponsors this year as well. We want to extend a big thank you to all sponsors one more time, we could have made #FGJ20 this awesome without them.

#FGJ20 wouldn’t be possible without Futureplay Games as our national GOLD Sponsor for the event! A huge thanks to this inspiring company!

Thank you again everyone who attended or followed the action through our streams and social media, it was crazy but amazing weekend!  Follow our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and see you all at the next jam!

These are the Finnish Game Jam Awards of 2019!

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On Friday December 13th we gathered together at Finnish Game Jam Awards to celebrate not only jam games but also all the great people in the community!

All of the awarded games have been made in different game jams organized by Finnish Game Jam during the 2019 season.

Games

Life Of John
Long John Award
FGJ19 Kuopio

  • JP Hakoluoto

Home is a place that keeps us warm and safe. But what happens when you end up without a proper home and even your temporary dumpster gets taken away? Life Of John provides a unique and emotional experience while reminding us that helping others when they are at their lowest point might save humanity. Life Of John is a beautiful narrative experience with simple yet interesting gameplay. This immersive game essay created in a one-man team clearly stands out from the Finnish jam games of 2019.

Poopster
HamsterBoy Award
ASM Game Jam ‘19

  • Samuli Jääskeläinen
  • Pekka Kujansuu
  • Pyry Takkunen
  • Julia Rässa
  • Jari Miranda
  • Arttu Kurttila
  • Juho Korhonen

What do you get when you combine hamsters, pears and awesome game technology from the ’80s? A game about pooping hamster with sweet Game Boy tunes. The Poopster is a very wholesome retro package of graphics, gameplay, and music. It was made during Assembly Game Jam 2019, at the best Finnish jamming place to explore commercially obsolete old hardware and to show to the world how the jammers don’t let the platforms of the past to be forgotten in silence.

Human Rescue
Reversed Roles Award
FGJ19 Next Games Helsinki

  • Pekka Kujansuu
  • Petri Räsänen

Who is the dog’s best friend? Human! Rescuing humans from the streets is the job of a truly virtuous dog! Human Rescue a simple jam game with great gameplay and polished cartoony visuals. The attraction of the game lies in its role-reversing core: In Human Rescue you are tasked to adopt humans and use them to adopt even more humans. Who would let humans roam around the streets aimlessly and without guardians anyway?

Where The Birds Are
Birdhouse Award
FGJ19 Games Factory Helsinki

  • Aleksi Pekkala
  • Olli Etuaho
  • Harri Dammert
  • Brandon Startz
  • Kirsi Ekberg

We know very well that winter in Finland can be tough – especially for the small birds! For our pleasure, the birds that do not migrate stay behind and delight our forests with their tweets, from their homes. Where The Birds Are is a very Finnish, minimalistic and calming piece of game art. In this game, you are tasked to set up birdhouses to trees and solve the puzzle while music grows as you advance and see where the birds are. Calming games are still a rarity and such pieces definitely stand out from the jam crowds!

Mochabot Organic
Barista Bot Award
Pocket Jam #4

  • Henri Sarasvirta
  • Christina Lassheikki
  • Leo Krechmer
  • Tuma Heinonen
  • Virpi Väinölä

Finnish appreciate games, coffee, technology, and sustainability – so why not games about barista robots with organic beans! In Mochabot Organic players receive the orders and brew the coffee with the help of a cute, relentless barista bot. This jam game is served with a minimalistic color palette and a great art style in a package of multiple minigames that soothe your caffeine-induced brains.

Sleeping Bunny
Midwinter Dream Award
FGJ19 Games Factory Helsinki

  • Arhi Makkonen
  • Henri Viitanen

Winter is here… and we all need to keep warm, bunnies too. Furthermore, what would be a better winter hobby than sleeping by the warmth of a fireplace? Sleeping Bunny takes the player on a wintery journey to save a bunny from cold and sleep deprivation. This jam game offers consistent and stylized art with simple and elegant gameplay – a jam game at its best! Simple yet surprisingly challenging gameplay of Sleeping Bunny lets the player unravel the goal on their own and minimalistic, as well as atmospheric audio space, supports the immersive narrative of the game. Playing a piece like this puts smiles on our faces and goodnight dreams in our heads. 

Special Awards

Julius Jämsen
Jamtivist Award

What would game jams be without music? And even more importantly, what would music be without jamming together? Julius Jämsen brought the jam-lovers together with a power of musical jamming at Jam Jam 2019. If there has ever been a sleazy song about game jamming, we are confident that it cannot beat the ooze of love that this international and multilingual eight-minute song has to offer. A true jamactivist act of bringing people together deserves an acknowledgment of the Jamtivist Award 2019!

IBM
Future Award

Game jams use technologies from present and past, but how about the future? We have been told that the future is quantum and quantum is playable! Goes without saying that anything that we can use for play, we jammers, love! In February 2019, IBM provided the first-ever live access to and developer support for the quantum computers at the Quantum Wheel game jam. We were humbled by such privilege and now very eager to see what the quantum future will bring for us jammers. We believe that combining the power of future technologies and bravery of the jammers can take us far and let us have fun while doing it!

Outstanding Support Awards

  • Futureplay
  • Veikkaus Game Studio
  • Neogames

Finnish Game Jam organization would be nothing without the community. Every year and every jam is a joint effort of organizers, participants, jamtivists, jamthusiasts, jam friends and lovers – supporters of all sorts. This year our biggest supporters were Supercell, Veikkaus Game Studio, and Neogames.

Another FGJ great event is over. We want to thank all the winners and all the event participants. It would not happen without you! Thank you!

Pocket Jam #4 Report.

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Pocket Jam #4 is over! This year the entire conference has been moved into the Kaapelitehdas, and where is the conference – there is a jam! The location was very cool this year in all means. Jam took place in the cellar, right under the main conference with 45 jammers in total. By this way, Pocket Jam #4 was in the middle of the conference and at the same time, it had a cool, chill and creative space with many visitors from upstairs.

This time the topic was “organic”. The topic was chosen because of its simplicity and wideness at the same time. “Organic” as a theme is relevant to mobile gaming and can be interpreted in many different ways: nature, insides of us humans, organic coffee, etc. In this way, this word turned into a creative push for our jammers for implying organic vision into the games. 

This year in total 11 games have been created. All games were finished and uploaded according to the deadline and each participant was inspired by friendly competition. Despite the limited amount of development time, with a bit more than 24h, published games really can blow your mind!

Also, we had a panel of judges from Pocket Gamer were nicely colour coordinated with their fashionable outfits – all of them had flowery white and blue shirts, maybe because we were in Finland. They are professional game journalists that have already a long career with them, so they were able to ask good questions from the teams and appreciate the level of polish and creativity.

Here is top three Pocket Jam #4 games:

Overall this year Pocket Jam is a great success again. The creative crowd that developed an amazing jamming vibe with conference touch. Also, we even have received feedback in case of comparison with hackathons – how nice the atmosphere was, how welcoming everybody was and also how much learning happens in the jam compared to the hackathon.

Thank you all for a great event!

Please follow the link and check out Pocket Jam #4 games.

See you at Pocket Jam #5 in 2020!

#pocketjam4 #PGCHelsinki #gamejam #gamedevelopment

Jam Jam Festival was bigger than ever!

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Third international Jam Jam Festival 2019 gathered jam organizers from all over the world to the forests of Sappee, Finland, to network, share ideas and relax in good company. This year was the biggest Jam Jam ever with almost 80 participants!

The Seminar Day offered talks from jammers and game jam organizers from all over the world: Finland, India, Romania, UK, Poland, Estonia, USA and Denmark.

Keynote speaker Yadu Rajiv from Bangalore, India, talked about the game jamming and game development communities and in India. Jupiter Hadley, the founder of indiegamejams.com, talked about her journey trying to play and document as many indie games as she can.

The full Seminar Day schedule was as follows:

  • Keynote: Yadu Rajiv: Game Jams in India – Our Story So Far
  • Kacper Domański: Game Jams of Poland
  • Mathias Jensen: More than a Jam: Nordic Game Jam’s Evolution
  • Chris Filip: Learning to Let Go
  • Johanna Summers: 47 to 47,000 – Managing Community Events on a Global Scale
  • Sebastian Laitila: Using Service Design in Hackathons and Game Jams
  • Licia Prehn: Jamming With Blind People and Being Nice
  • Jupiter Hadley: Trying To Document All the Game Jam Games
  • Julia Rässa: Love Is Tested… and Debugged!
  • Elie Abraham: How Jamming Saved/Ruined My Life

In addition to the seminars on Saturday, the Sunday was filled with workshops that any participant could organize. The workshop themes ranged from jam stories to making pancakes to jamming an entire song.

Naturally there was also a game jam! Henri Sarasvirta hosted a 1 hour game jam in one of the cottages. The theme world tries dilation was randomly generated. A total of 11 games were made! You can find and download all of them in itch.io: https://itch.io/jam/jam-jam-1h-jam-2

Thank you for an amazing event, and see you at Jam Jam Festival 2020!

Antti’s Nordic Game Jam Report

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As a part of our scholarship program, the Finnish Game Jam sent Antti Kopenen to the Nordic Game Jam (DK) to represent the Finnish jamming scene. Here is Antti’s report about his jam experience.

Jamming with the Giants – Nordic Game Jam 2019

The Nordic Game Jam is one of the world’s largest game jam events with around 700 jammers every year.  It is held annually in various locations in Copenhagen, Denmark. This year the location was in The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, or KADK. 

I came to Denmark before the actual jamming started. I wanted to hear the talks and participate in the workshops. I’m like sponge, sucking all the game dev information I can get. I personally got the best tips from a workshop by Brad Meritt on how to create depth to your small game. There was also a very handy talk from Sarah Nielsen about conveying your game visually. There were bunch of other talks and workshops too, but these two were also referred by other jammers as a great source of inspiration for their jam game. 

I planned to participate in the Jam as an artist. I jumped in the NGJ2019 Discord group and started looking for a group. Soon after I got another invite from Gustav Bok, a Swedish Technical Designer working for Massive Entertainment. A great opportunity to work with a AAA-grade developer, I thought and said hell yes! Gustav was on his way from Malmö to Copenhagen, but he wanted me to meet with other team members who were already in the area. We sat down with Nikolaj de Haan, a Dutch composer and we were later joined by Jorge Yagüe, a programming student from Spain. Nikolaj was very easy going and relaxed. Jorge was more serious and effective in his approach. 

We spent the day together attending speeches and talking about games. I felt like we got along well. Later in the evening we attended the Kick-Off party in a local Irish pub that was specifically set for the jammers. We spent the evening chatting with NGJ2019 volunteers. They were going to participate in the jam, after they got their volunteer duties out of the way. During the evening we tried to recruit one of the students to join our group, but she was reluctant. She was a bit intimidated by the competitiveness of our group, which I first thought was flattering, but thinking about it more, she probably meant Gustav from Massive Entertainment.   

After full night’s rest, it was Friday. Yay! The day Jam would start! After the morning speeches our team gathered in the lobby to meet Gustav. He appeared to be very intelligent, positive and playful. He had what I can only describe as an aura of professionality around him. He had brought with him his friend Martin Blomkvist, an Animator and a Designer from Massive Entertainment. Gustav described him as one of the most talented designers he knew. Martin appeared more of a quiet guy overall, but not being shy to voice his ideas. 

Next topic of the event was theme revelation, where the NGJ2019 staff had randomly picked a theme for us. This year’s theme was “That again!”. Wow, what an abstract theme I thought. Gustav as a technical designer was thinking about it more practically. He explained that the theme is kind of open ended and leaves room for repetitive game elements, or time travel mechanics. He had a vision of an assembly line with robots in his mind which he kind of liked.  

After the theme revelation we had some team building games. Our team lacked one artist, so we devised a plan to split our group up and scout up for potential one. After half an hour we found Morten Bilet. He worked as a pilot and did game jams as a hobby. Morten was an easy going and friendly guy, with real positive attitude.

Next, we bumped into Gregor Ehrenstein, also working in Massive Entertainment as Senior Tech Programmer. A cheerful guy, always laughing. Gustav praised him as one the most talented programmers out there. Gregor was not really looking out to jam, but Gustav convinced him to join our team. At this point I was thinking to myself, how many of guys were there around from Massive Entertainment. Later Gustav revealed that the amount was at least 10, but they all just wanted to blend in the mass and not draw attention. 

We gathered our full team and went to setup our “Base of Operations” in a quiet part of the jamming building. Gustav organized our sitting positions. Artists on the left side, programmers on the right side of the table, he said. Jorge brought an old chalk board from somewhere. A perfect place to draw our ideas. There we sat down together to discuss our game ideas. We toyed with ideas about cleaning simulation, burning houses, revisiting some famous disasters, defending a castle from some huge monster, building a robot over again and again. Nothing was off limits and ideas were flying left and right.  

Later during the dinner, our game idea refined into defending a farm with old people from invading Ogre. The enemy would try to steal chickens and stomp the crops. Four players would work together to defend with old muskets and rakes. We also added crows that would come to pick the crops every now and then. It was all to be in 3D and I was little bit uncomfortable with the workload. We agreed that Martin would help with the animations. 

We returned to a laughter filled jamming hall. Everyone was having fun thinking the craziest ideas. We pretty much had our idea set up and started installing latest Unity versions. Gustav told that he had 5 years’ worth of experience with Unity. To my surprise Gregor had never used Unity before and wondered why anyone would want to use it. In Martin’s opinion it was good Engine for prototyping a game, but it was too limiting for more advanced users. He told it was hiding some important stuff for the sake of usability. Unity also lacked free collaboration tool, which he thought would be a strong selling point for the Engine. 

Jorge had already set up our version control. We were going to use Git Lab and Source Tree. Nikolaj suggested using FMOD would be the best thing for audio. I created mood board to communicate our art style to the rest of the team. Me and Morten agreed on using flat shaded low poly style, which basically means simple 3d objects without textures. To make this style look good I thought to top it up with Unity’s own post processing. I pitched the style to Gustav and he liked it. 

Martin was doing project management and had set up a Trello board. We added our assets list to already quite full tasklist. Things were progressing fast. Gustav told us to prepare greyboxing versions for all the assets, which basically means doing simple boxes to have something to place on the level. 

Gustav and Gregor were used to working together, which was reflected in their communications. They were constantly negotiating what they needed from each other, which things to prioritize and how long things would take to create. Gustav was setting up the overall project architecture, while Gregor concentrated on the details. Such professionalism was interesting to follow.  

The evening went pretty much with setting up the basics to be ready for the Saturday, which would be full jamming day from morning to the night and probably even beyond. After Morten and I got the grayboxing done, I thought it would be good time to call it a day. I headed back to hostel to get few hours of sleep. 

The next morning, I woke to a sunny Copenhagen and walked back to KADK. I was the first of my team to arrive, others were still away. I headed to canteen for the free breakfast. I couldn’t find any familiar faces, so I sat in a random table full of people. After some chattering people started talking about Baba Is You, which won the NGJ2017 and had just been released. I thought to myself, what a cool game, I wish I could meet the developer. Then a guy sitting across the table revealed that actually he was the developer, Arvi Teikari. What a nice surprise! He is a Finnish person just like me so of course we talked about saunas and our shared hobby of swimming in icy waters. I asked about where he got the idea for the Baba Is You game and he told me that it was actually from a banana, or what if the banana-is-not.

After the breakfast I headed back to our base and started refining the greybox versions of our 3D models into more detailed placeholders. Other team members started coming back in one by one. I heard that Gustav and Martin drove all to way back to Malmö for a sleep, so it might take a while for them to get back. 

Hours went by while we refined our 3D assets together with Morten. I also took control over the level designing and set up the post processing. Something was off and post processing package ended up being deleted during version controlling. To this day we don’t quite know exactly what caused it. Perhaps just my incompetence with Source Tree program.  

I peeked at Nikolaj’s work. He used FMOD and was happy with the Unity integration side of it. He also showed that he had coded audio manager and how we could trigger sounds with his system. I was quite surprised by his skill in programming. You don’t usually see a talented musician coding on this level. 

Gustav and Martin arrived after midday. Their journey back to Malmö and into sleep went into the early morning hours. We went on building the project until Gregor had us do a team meeting. He was worried because were past the Jam mid point and we still didn’t have any game play. We ended up cutting some features, like attacks against the ogre with rake and muskets. Instead we now focused on simplified player mechanics of picking and dropping. The ogre would be scared off by two players being close by.

Evening turned into night and everyone was working hard. The art side of our game came together around midnight. After that there was only polishing and taking screenshots of our game. Gustav told me it would be okay for Morten and me to go and have some sleep. They were going to stay with Gregor, Martin and Jorge and crunch through the night to get the needed game play features up and running. 

Happily, I went back to hostel to get few hours of sleep. Early in the morning I was welcomed back by a happy but tired punch of developers. They told me how Jorge had tried to sleep under the table, but Gregor managed to accidentally abuse him with a chair. They were both laughing about the whole thing.  

We had 6 hours left to work on the project before it needed to be published. I was tasked to implement animations into Unity. I also got to modify Ogre’s script a bit. I was happy to have some variety to my tasks list. The hours went by pretty fast. Nikolaj in the meantime had gathered a group of jammers in a room to do crowd sounds. He ended up sharing the results in the NGJ2019 discord channel for everyone. Such a nice gesture. 

Release time creeped closer and everyone was hurrying to finish. I had done polishing on the art side to reflect the final production value. Gustav was pleased with the “graphical fidelity” of things. That made me quite proud. 

We had to move our base of operations into the jamming hall and setup a place for people to play our game. This year’s jam was going to be decided by a collective vote of all the jammers. Jammers would go around playing each other’s games and put a token in a pack that represented their favorite jam game.

We ended up having technical difficulties while presenting our game. We only got two players to work for our four-player game. Also, there were multiple minor bugs and one major one that broke the game. Even though we had all these problems, people still liked our game. Especially the children that were testing games with their jammer parents. It was nice so see a new generation of jammers growing up.

I went around to see what others had created, and there were some really awesome games. For example; burger patty racing game, game about lump in your leg, a wild-west stand-off game in the dark, a chicken scooping VR game stand out in my mind. One that gathered the most people around I think was game “1-1”, parodying Super Mario Bros. The game had Mario in a 10 glitchy loops. The game ended up being voted third of the game jam. The winner was “The Lump”. A game where you wake up during the night with a lump in your leg and try to get rid of it. It was a really creative, weird and silly game. I think the makers of “The Lump” really hit the spot in what comes to jamming culture. Let creativity fly, make a silly game, have fun and you will do well! 

Overall the NGJ2019 was simply the best one I’ve attended so far. I got to jam with some giants of the industry, made new friends, enjoyed sunny Copenhagen, learned a lot and most importantly had plenty of fun. Thanks to  Finnish Game Jam Association for making this happen! 

#FGJ19 Report

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Another FGJ wrapped up, thank you everyone!

Global Game Jam weekend has come and gone and we are one jam experience richer. 48 hours is a short time to develop a game from scratch, and every year we are amazed at what the jammers are able to do within such a limited timeframe!

This year in Finland we had a total of 884 jammers who developed 218 games. You can find all the games on the Global Game Jam page: 
https://globalgamejam.org/2019/games?title=&country=FI

On a global scale there were in total 47 000 jammers who made 9000 games at 860 sites in 113 countries, which makes this Global Game Jam the biggest game jam ever held! 10 new countries joined the fun, as sites were set up in Azerbaijan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Myanmar, Namibia, and Rwanda.

The global theme for GGJ19 was “what home means to you”, and jammers incorporated it in their games in countless different ways: there was homesickness, homelessness and house parties, to name a few.

We were lucky to have amazing national and local sponsors this year as well. We want to extend a big thank you to all sponsors one more time, we couldn’t have made #FGJ19 this awesome without them

The national gold sponsor was Supercell.

The national silver sponsor was Veikkaus Game Studio.

Thank you again everyone who attended or followed the action through our streams and social media, it was a blast of a weekend!

See you at the next jam!